Screening Field Engineers - Questions That Actually Work (Part 2)

Now, we spoke about different aspects of the interview.

One I would like to stop at for a moment is preparation and especially, in the panel interview so that we don't cross paths.

I was lucky to work at an organization that had a document already prepared for questions.

And before meeting with the candidate as a panel, we sat down and decided who's gonna ask which questions.

So there was me as the hiring manager, there was the director, and we had HR with us.

Now, the one-to-one is different because it's on us to prepare our questions.

How do you go about it, Bruce?

Well, I fully agree, first of all.

I think what you just said, Guy, is a best practice, you know, too often.

And I've had this experience.

I've been involved in this, unfortunately, where we weren't, right? And and uh so lesson learned and shame on us right so i think that's clearly the best practice and and people need to to be disciplined to it and frankly it works on a one-to-one basis as well uh in fact most recently i've worked with a a wonderful hr organization that prepared those questions too for each interviewing person to be done separately, not as a panel.

And in some cases it can be overwhelming or it's hard to follow the script exactly, right? Because as we said earlier, we kind of like to go down certain pathways as conversations and discussions, you know, evolve and that's fine, but there are still good guidelines to follow.

And so I clearly think it's a best practice.

And I think it can work both with a panel group as well as individually.

And it's just about being prepared.

As we know, in field service, it's all about preparation is key to our success.

Same with interviewing.

Agreed.

Kevin, would you like to add anything?

Yeah, Bruce covered it pretty well there.

I mean, there's always questions you have to ask, right? In some countries, there's compliance questions.

Do you have the right certificates to work in this country? The training that you need to work in that industry, perhaps.

So there's always a list of questions that have to be asked.

And then if you're in a panel, you need to decide on those questions and you decide to go off on tangents.

How far are you allowed to go? Because typically, you know, for a service engineer position, a panel interview would probably be 30 to 45 minutes maximum.